of buffalo, beaver, deer, and other wild animals—­we have also an abundance of horses—­we have every thing we want—­we have plenty of land, if you will keep your people off it.  My Father has a piece on which he lives (Council bluffs), and we wish him to enjoy it—­we have enough without it—­but we wish him to live near us, to give us good council—­to keep our ears and eyes open, that we may continue to pursue the right road—­the road to happiness.  He settles all differences between us and the whites, between the red-skins themselves—­he makes the whites do justice to the red-skins, and he makes the red-skins do justice to the whites.  He saves the effusion of human blood, and restores peace and happiness in the land.  You have already sent us a father (Major O’Fallon); it is enough—­he knows us, and we know him—­we keep our eye constantly upon him, and since we have heard your words, we will listen more attentively to his.

“It is too soon, my great Father, to send those good chiefs amongst us. We are not starving yet—­we wish you to permit us to enjoy the chase until the game of our country is exhausted—­until the wild animals become extinct.  Let us exhaust our present resources before you make us toil and interrupt our happiness.  Let me continue to live as I have done; and after I have passed to the good or evil spirit, from off the wilderness of my present life, the subsistence of my children may become so precarious as to need and embrace the assistance of those good people.

“There was a time when we did not know the whites—­our wants were then fewer than they are now.  They were always within our control—­we had then seen nothing which we could not get.  Before our intercourse with the whites (who have caused such a destruction in our game) we could lie down to sleep, and when we awoke we would find the buffalo feeding around our camp—­but now we are killing them for their skins, and feeding the wolves with their flesh, to make our children cry over their bones.

“Here, my great Father, is a pipe which I present to you, as I am accustomed to present pipes to all the Red-skins in peace with us.  It is filled with such tobacco as we were accustomed to smoke before we knew the white people.  It is pleasant, and the spontaneous growth of the most remote parts of our country.  I know that the robes, leggings, and moccasins, and bear-claws are of little value to you; but we wish you to have them deposited and preserved in some conspicuous part of your lodge, so that when we are gone and the sod turned over our bones, if our children should visit this place, as we do now, they may see and recognize with pleasure the depositories of their fathers; and reflect on the times that are past.”

I shall now take leave of the Indians and their political condition, by observing that the proceedings of the American government, throughout, towards this brave but unfortunate race, have only been exceeded in atrocity by the past and present conduct of the East India government towards the pusillanimous but unoffending Hindoos.